Nurturing undiscovered talent

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Nurturing undiscovered talent *

Black Girl Writers is a mentorship programme offering free 1:1 sessions for unagented writers who identify as Black women and/or nonbinary.

Black Girl Writers was founded in 2020 by an (at the time) unpublished and unagented author who wanted to level the playing field for Black writers struggling to break into the industry.

Six years later, we have helped writers to receive agent representation and secure traditional publishing deals, and have hosted novel writing masterclasses with Big Five publishers.

About

Our mentors are a mixture of published authors, literary agents, and editorial staff at various traditional publishing houses. To receive a mentorship, please carefully read through our mentor list to select the best mentor for your chosen project and complete our mentor matching form.

You do not have to have a completed manuscript to mentor with us and we are happy to help writers at all stages.

Our 1:1 sessions typically last for 1 hour but can go for longer depending on mentor capacity.

Due to limited resources, we will close our mentorship form once all mentors have been matched with a mentee, and will reopen when slots are available. We typically have a break at the end of autumn and reopen for Spring, after March’s London Book Fair.

If you are unable to get matched the first time, please check out our events area for the details of our upcoming group sessions, which are free and hosted online.

Meet the Founder

Jackson P Brown is the author of The Reaper (Del Rey UK), an urban fantasy set in London and first book in the Gethsemane series. When not writing, she's usually reading, drinking matcha, or ranting about anime and manga online.

She founded Black Girl Writers in 2020 after a workshop with a literary agent left her disillusioned and she wanted to create a way to help other Black writers break into traditional publishing.

Events

Alongside our formal mentorships we also offer regular group sessions with publishing professionals. These range from Q&A’s, writing workshops, and pitching events. So even if you are unable to get matched with a mentor, you will still get a chance to meet an author, literary agent, or publisher.

These are all free and hosted online for accessibility. We do our best to ensure the time of these sessions are suitable for various time zones, but as we are UK based, we prioritise GMT.

BGW x Janklow and Nesbit: Meet the Agents!

Join us for a Q&A with the lovely folk from Janklow and Nesbit, one of the world’s leading literary agencies who represent such powerhouse authors as Yomi Adegoke, Gillian Anderson, and Dr Ally Louks.

We’ll pick their brains to find out how to get an agent, what’s the current trending genres, and how to improve your chances of getting a book deal.

Our hosts are Hayley Steed, Hannah Todd and Emma Leong.

Come with your burning questions for this interactive session!